


Not Your Apprentice

by NeurotropicAgentX



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Lightsabers, Old Age, Rare Pair - platonic, Sparring, Tea, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6651259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/pseuds/NeurotropicAgentX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke sends Rey to investigate the dark presence in an old Jedi temple. She did not expect to encounter an ancient Sith. She did not expect that Sith to offer her tea or to criticise her lightsaber form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Your Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from the TFA kinkmeme for [this](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3961.html?thread=8628089#cmt8628089) prompt. Thank you to my editor for all her invaluable assistance.

The temple was built on a huge scale, with soaring towers and high vaulted ceilings. Even the gradual encroachment of the native flora and the few spots of obvious ruin didn’t detract from its grandeur. Rey stepped lightly as she wandered through the halls. There was a strange hush over the place, like in the few libraries she’d managed to see since leaving Jakku. She looked forward to spending time here, after she’d cleared this place of whatever malicious influence had taken root.

Rey made her way deeper into the temple, but she struggled to find any hint of the darkness Master Skywalker had spoken of. To her, the dark side manifested as a low-grade dissonance that hummed through the Force. Whenever she’d encountered one of the minor Sith artefacts in Master Skywalker’s collection, they’d felt slimy and off. The Jedi artefacts he’d acquired were much more pleasant. 

When she’d asked her master why he even had both kinds of items, he’d given a long-winded lecture about knowledge lost and knowing the enemy. Rey would have been just as happy to not understand the dark side-users. They mostly seemed to live in a state of constant hatred, fear, and unhappiness.

The sun was starting to set and Rey had only explored about a third of the temple. Strange animal sounds were coming from outside the temple walls. Of course, most non-desert places were filled with strange sounds as far as Rey was concerned. The sheer abundance of life in most places was staggering, but, Rey couldn’t help feeling, somehow wasteful. 

Her pulse speed up a fraction when a flicker of firelight came into view. It was half-obscured by a broken-off pillar, and it was definitely a controlled blaze. She sent her awareness out through the Force, but didn’t detect much. There was life, certainly, but it was still hard for her to distinguish between plant, animal and sapient life-forms. She crept around the pillar to gauge the lay of the land. 

There was a large open courtyard surrounded by pillars, which weren’t supporting anything. In the middle of the space was a shallow depression, choked with weeds. The firelight came from an alcove that was open to the courtyard, but surrounded by three walls. There was a crude sleeping pallet against one wall and the sort of makeshift furniture and junk that Rey associated with her old scavenger hideout. Nothing was discarded because it might be useful later. Sitting on the ground behind the campfire was a figure shrouded in dark robes. 

Rey debated with herself for a moment before approaching with one hand on her lightsaber hilt. Before she was even halfway across the courtyard, the figure spoke. ‘You’re loud.’

Rey bristled. ‘What? I’m not loud.’ She’d been particularly careful during her exploration and approach. Now she crossed the courtyard without bothering to hide and stood a cautious distance from the mouth of the alcove. 

‘You are not good at stalking, but more importantly, you are loud in the Force,’ the figure clarified. ‘You’re projecting over half the temple.’

Rey unclipped her lightsaber, but didn’t engage the blade yet. The figure didn’t feel like the dark presence she was looking for, but there was definitely something suspicious about all this. ‘Who are you?’ Rey asked.

The figure remained silent for a long moment. ‘A good question.’

‘I was sent here to find a dark presence in this temple.’

‘And have you found one?’ the figure asked.

‘You know about the Force and you can clearly sense it, so what side are you on?’ Rey asked.

‘My own.’ The figure snorted. ‘Obviously.’

Rey engaged her lightsaber blade. She didn’t move to attack, but she doubted a dark side-user would take the threat lightly. 

The figure shifted. ‘Put it down, child.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ Rey said. Then, without any warning, a sharp tug from the Force snatched her lightsaber out of her hand. Her weapon disengaged as it flew toward the figure, who snatched it out of mid-air. Rey caught a glimpse of a gnarled hand with red and black skin before it disappeared back into the robe. More importantly, the brief burst of Force-use had a familiar, unpleasant sickliness to it.

‘You _are_ dark,’ Rey accused. Her heart pounded as she reached surreptitiously for her blaster. She didn’t draw it yet, but rapidly calculated the odds of getting a shot off before the dark side-user could activate her lightsaber.

Instead of attacking, the figure pushed back their cowl, revealing the face of an ancient zabrak. His horns were cracked and dull with age, but his yellow eyes were still bright in his gaunt face. ‘Perhaps. I do whatever it takes to survive. It looks like you are someone who would understand that.’

‘I’m not dark. The dark side feels twisted and wrong whenever I brush up against it.’

A smile curled around the zabrak’s lips. ‘It must be nice to be so certain about everything.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Come, join me for tea.’

‘What?’

‘Tea. The water’s almost boiled.’ The zabrak gestured toward the metal container that hung over the fire. Rey hadn’t noticed it.

‘I’m not going to drink tea with some dark side-user.’

The zabrak smiled again. ‘Ah, but I have your lightsaber and night is falling. You will not like facing night-time beasts unarmed.’

The fact that the zabrak hadn’t attacked her, despite taking her lightsaber, was somewhat reassuring. More importantly, he was right about it getting dark, even if she didn’t quite believe him about ‘night-time beasts’. Rey took a few steps forward and slung her pack down beside the fire. She sat on it and folded her arms, giving him a look over the top of the flames. 

The zabrak produced two chipped bowls. He poured steaming water into both of them and sprinkled in some rusty-brown powder from a pouch that sitting beside the fire. A pungent floral smell rose from the bowls as the powder dissolved.

The zabrak picked up one bowl and inhaled deeply, seeming to savour the aroma. He took a small sip before sliding it around the fire toward Rey. ‘Now you know it’s safe,’ he said. He picked up his own bowl and took a few more sips.

Rey picked up the chipped bowl and held it between her hands, enjoying the warmth and the rich scent. She took a tentative sip. It wasn’t bitter or numbing like something dangerous would have been. She resolved to wait a few moments before drinking more, just in case. ‘If I’m drinking your tea with you, I should probably know your name,’ she said.

‘That’s an old hospitality rule,’ the zabrak mused. ‘Very well, I am Maul.’

‘I’m Rey,’ she said. She set aside her tea and knelt down to rummage through her pack. Most of the rations she’d brought wouldn’t be suitable, but she eventually found a few dried meat strips that she’d brought as a luxury. She bit the end off one and swallowed it before handing it to Maul. ‘Now you know it’s safe,’ she said.

Maul stared at her for a long moment before taking the food with a gracious nod. ‘Thank you.’ 

///

Rey had managed to fall asleep, even with Maul lying across from her on the other side of the fire-pit. Growing up on Jakku had made her a very light sleeper and she trusted her ability to wake up at the slightest threatening change in her environment. In the end it was the sunlight slanting across her eyes that roused her, rather than any action on Maul’s part. She sat up from her seeping roll and looked over at Maul’s pallet. He was sitting in front of it in a cross-legged meditative position. 

His eyes opened a heartbeat later. Then he stood up and stretched. The grace of his movements was at odds with the stiffness in his posture. 

‘Today your training starts,’ Maul said.

Rey gave him a look. ‘I’m not training with you.’

Maul ignored her and walked out into the courtyard. ‘The grip on your lightsaber was wrong and your stance was good for a staff, not a sword. I want to see your katas, apprentice,’ he called over one shoulder.

Rey stalked after him. ‘I’m not your apprentice. I’m here to study Jedi history, not dark side combat.’

Maul turned to face her, his upper lip twisted in a sneer. ‘It is all combat, dark or light, but if you think yourself so proficient…’ Without warning, Maul tossed her lightsaber back. Rey caught it reflexively. Then he shucked off his bulky outer robes, revealing tighter sparring gear. Despite his apparent age, there was evidence of lean muscle beneath his wrinkled skin.

Maul drew a lightsaber from his belt. It looked longer than any of the other lightsabers Rey had seen. He engaged the blade. Twin red beams emerged from either end, producing a weapon that looked a lot like a staff.

‘Oh,’ breathed Rey as she watched Maul spin his weapon. ‘I didn’t know there were lightsabers like that.’

Maul flashed his teeth in a quick grin. ‘There aren’t. The saberstaff is my own design. Ready your weapon.’ 

Rey engaged the blue blade of her own weapon. She didn’t like the feeling of Maul’s weapon being activated while hers wasn’t. No matter how friendly he was acting, he was a dark side-user and Rey couldn’t let herself forget that.

Maul made a disapproving sound as he eyed her stance. ‘Don’t plant your feet so wide, bend your knees more.’

‘I’m still not here to do what you say,’ Rey pointed out.

Maul sighed. ‘Very well.’ With no more warning than that, he struck out with his saberstaff. Rey brought her blade around in a two handed block. The recoil wasn’t nearly as strong as when she’d stopped blows from Ren. Instead, Maul let his strike glance off, instead bringing the other end of his saberstaff up in a vicious undercut. Rey couldn’t bring her lightsaber down in time and was forced to dodge backwards. Her weight was on her dominant foot and she brought her lightsaber up in front of her. It wasn’t necessary. Maul had backed off and given her time to recover. Rey narrowed her eyes. 

‘Come on then!’ she shouted.

A smirk twisted Maul’s lips. He held his saberstaff above his head with one hand. His off hand was lowered in front of his body. Rey had never seen a stance so open and bold. When she circled to one side of him, he lashed out again. Maul never blocked, instead levelling each offensive blow with maximum ferocity. It should have left huge holes in his defences, but Rey could never seem to move fast enough to exploit them.

Rey soon realised that Maul was holding back. For all the savagery of his strikes, he seemed more concerned with showing off his abilities than landing a hit. Still, his teeth were bared in a snarl and Rey caught strange flashes of darkness moving through the Force. They were barely noticeable, but occasionally they brushed up against her awareness, like something glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. It was a discordant and unpleasant feeling.

Rey was getting nowhere with the drills that her master had taught her. Every now and then she’d revert to staff movements, despite the lightsaber in her hand. She tried to centre herself and draw on the peace of the Force. 

Maul seemed amused by her attempts to keep calm. He pushed forward and flicked his saberstaff around her blade. Her weapon twisted in her hand and a spike of sharp pain in her wrist made her hand open reflexively. Maul followed the disarm with a pivoting kick. The top of his foot connected with her sternum and the impact sent Rey crashing to the ground, out of reach of her lightsaber. An unwavering red blade entered her field of vision. Her breath came harsher as she realised that no matter how friendly a sparring match this was, Maul was a dark side-user and could kill her right here. 

Instead, he deactivated his weapon and reached out a hand. After the briefest hesitation, Rey took it and let herself be pulled to her feet. His skin was dry and seemed to run hotter than human-standard. For a moment it reminded her bizarrely of the desert. 

Only when she’d gotten to her feet did Rey realise that the grimace on Maul’s face was more pained than aggressive. His stance was lopsided and he was favouring the leg he’d just exerted.

‘You’re hurt,’ she said.

Maul grunted noncommittally. ‘My own fault.’

‘Could I help?’

Maul looked vaguely uncomfortable. ‘It is where the hip joins the leg. The bones aren’t settled quite right. I could use sharp force here.’ He indicated a place on his flank.

Rey circled around to his right and Maul turned his head to track her with unreadable golden eyes. 

‘What exactly should I do?’ Rey asked.

‘One sharp strike here and don’t pull your strength. Angle slightly upward like this.’

‘This is going to hurt,’ Rey said.

‘Yes,’ Maul replied. ‘Pain is useful. Don’t hesitate.’

Rey angled her hand, measured the distance and gave a solid punch exactly as Maul had indicated. Sometimes unpleasant things needed to be done and there was no use trying to do it halfway. Maul gave a low hiss of pain, but managed not to move away from the strike. He tested his leg gingerly before nodding. 

‘Thank you.’

Rey shrugged.

‘So why are using your lightsaber like a staff?’ Maul asked.

Rey scowled. ‘I’ve been fighting with a staff most of my life.’

Maul hummed thoughtfully. ‘It shows. I could teach you how to fight with a saberstaff. It is also not like a staff, but it would be easier for you than trying to learn sword katas, I think.’

Rey eyed Maul’s weapon where it hung loosely from his grip. ‘I won’t learn the dark side.’

Maul shrugged. ‘I prefer the seventh form, which some would call naturally dark, but there are other forms I could teach.’

‘My master has been teaching me the third form.’

Maul snorted. ‘That is not a good form to teach you. You would do better with a more aggressive style. Maybe the sixth.’

Rey folded her arms. ‘Fine.’

‘Good. I’ll cut some staves. The first thing you will learn is not to let the ends touch you. It will be different from a staff, apprentice.’

When Maul had walked off, Rey muttered, ‘not your apprentice,’ under her breath.

///

Maul demonstrated a series of flowing moves with his saberstaff. Rey adjusted her grip on her own staff and copied Maul’s stance. Her staff was really just a branch that Maul had cut from one of the trees. The ends had been burned with his saberstaff to indicate where the ‘blades’ were. He’d been very firm about not letting them brush her skin when she practised, to avoid getting into bad habits.

‘Now you,’ Maul said. He deactivated his saberstaff and picked up the second stick he’d cut. For a moment Rey thought he wanted to spar, but instead he just leaned some of his weight on it. His hip was probably still giving him trouble.

Rey took a deep breath and moved through the first couple of patterns. Her third strike was just a little off-centre and the back end of her staff grazed just below her ribs. Sudden pain slammed into her side. She yelped and spun around to face Maul. Her staff was levelled at him before she’d made the conscious choice. The bastard had just hit her. He looked unconcerned and gestured for her to continue with the exercise. 

‘What? No! You just hit me.’

‘And if you had been using a live weapon, you would have been burned. Lucky for you, bruises heal quicker than burns,’ Maul said, as if this was the most reasonable idea in the galaxy.

‘Are you going to hit me every time I accidently touch the end of the staff?’ Rey asked incredulously.

‘Of course. And sometimes to correct your grip or stance. Pain is a better teacher than I.’

‘I think a lot of things would be better teachers than you,’ Rey muttered. 

Maul smirked. ‘This is light training. Your stick will not burn you. Real Sith training is much more brutal.’

Rey blinked. ‘You’re a Sith?’

Maul shrugged and looked away. ‘I was as an assassin for my Sith master. He gave me the name Darth Maul, but not much lore. I use the Force. I survive.’

‘If you’re a Sith, why are hanging around an old Jedi temple?’ Rey asked.

Maul shrugged. ‘Sith temples are not good places to rest. They are dangerous and seek to challenge disciples. They whisper to me about seizing power and fulfilling the Sith legacy. Jedi temples are much more soothing. All they whisper of is inaction.’

Rey cocked her head. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

Maul smiled. ‘I don’t think any temple would be loud enough to speak inaction to the young. Come, it is time to get back to your katas.’

Rey narrowed her eyes. ‘Do I get to hit you too?’ she asked.

Maul’s smile sharpened. ‘When we spar, yes. For now, you train as I trained. Be thankful that I do not correct you with my saberstaff.’

Rey gave Maul a long look. ‘That was how you were “corrected” during your training? With a live weapon?’

‘Yes,’ Maul said simply. ‘It is how I learned to harness pain and anger. For you, you will only learn not to burn yourself. I do not wish for my apprentice to lose a limb when we switch to live weapons training.’

‘I’m not your apprentice. And if you hit me, I will pay you back for every strike when we spar, no matter how old you are,’ Rey growled.

Maul nodded. ‘I look forward to when you have improved that much, apprentice.’

Rey scowled, but got into position to restart the drill.

///

The next evening, Rey gathered up the old Jedi data chips she’d collected in the temple and started running them through her datapad. A lot of them were corrupted and the text was hard to decipher, but eventually she found one that was readable. It seemed to be about old apprentice customs, which wasn’t that interesting to her, but she had to start somewhere if she wanted to learn more about the Jedi.

She settled back and began to read. It was a slow process because she’d only recently learned the skill. Seeing the speeds other people read at seemed unreal most of the time, but her teachers all said nice things about how quickly she’d been picking it up. Rey suspected that they were just being polite about it.

After struggling through the first three paragraphs, Rey looked up and noticed Maul watching her. Usually he meditated whenever there were no other pressing tasks and Rey liked that he left her alone so often. She still wasn’t used to long stretches of interaction with other people. 

‘Yes?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Maul’s eyes flicked toward her datapad. ‘What are you reading?’

‘Jedi lore. That’s what I’m actually supposed to be doing here.’

Maul snorted. ‘You don’t use text to speech?’

Rey scowled at him. ‘I know I’m slow at it, but I’m getting better. Besides, sometimes you need to read in situations where making noise or being distracted by noise is dangerous,’ she added. That was Master Skywaker’s favourite argument for why she’d had to learn.

Maul looked away. ‘I did not mean to offend.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘I never learned the skill.’

Rey blinked. ‘Oh. I suppose it’s not that relevant to combat training.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you… want to learn?’ Rey asked after a while. She told herself it wasn’t putting off her reading if she was helping someone _else_ learn.

‘I. Yes,’ Maul said. 'Thank you.'

Rey patted the space beside her on her bedroll and switched to some of the early learning programs she still had on her datapad. They all seemed patronising to her, but Master Skywalker had assured her that was because most people learned as children. Rey wasn’t sure she believed him. Reading seemed a bit too challenging for children.

Maul rose and stretched before padding around their fire and settling beside her. He peered intently at her screen.

‘Okay, these are the basic letters of Aurebesh,’ she said, bringing up the relevant screen. Maul nodded and quietly absorbed all the information she gave. He made the same sort of mistakes she had when she’d first started. Rey felt better equipped to recognise them than her teachers had. 

Maul tended to tense slightly whenever he made a mistake and stared fixedly at his work. Rey probably wouldn’t have noticed it if they hadn’t been sitting close enough to share a screen. After his third or fourth mistake he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She just corrected him like usual and explained the logic. He stopped tensing after that and neither of them mentioned it.

///

‘You need to focus your connection to the Force,’ Maul said. ‘You let it spread out from all around you. It means you can be sensed, which is dangerous. It also means you lack focus, which is inefficient.’

Rey scowled at him. He’d been trying to teach her a different style of meditating for half the morning. Instead of dismissing thought and emotion, like Master Skywalker’s style did, it involved paying close attention to her internal world. That was hard enough for her, but worse was the arrhythmic breathing. She’d never realised how hard it was to deliberately _not_ breathe in a pattern.

The sun wasn’t hot enough and sitting on the ground was uncomfortable. Rey closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She fidgeted. After a pause she opened one eye. 

‘Something wrong?’ Maul asked.

Rey opened both eyes and shifted position to stretch out her legs. ‘Were you using the Force when we fought that first time?’ she asked.

Maul’s brow furrowed, further emphasising his wrinkles. ‘Yes? As I do with every heartbeat. As you do,’ he said.

‘What? No, I mean, like,’ Rey made a vague gesture, ‘pulling and throwing and putting me off balance.’

Maul snorted. ‘No. I like a physical victory. I only use Force tricks when it’s necessary.’

‘So what do you mean by that “every heartbeat” stuff?’ Rey asked.

Maul sighed. ‘Have you ever worn Force-dampeners?’

Rey shook her head.

‘I have, as part of training. It is like being deaf and blind. One is clumsy, like being drunk on many nights without sleep. We use the Force to tell us about the world and warn us. It makes us fast and strong. Through the Force we survive.’ Maul shot her look. ‘It is part of why you are so loud.’

Rey glared. ‘Maybe you’re just weak in the Force,’ she said. ‘That’s why you’re able to be so “quiet”’.

Maul gave her a smile that bared his teeth. ‘You should use that frustrated anger, instead of letting it go to waste. Pay attention now. I will you show you shielding.’ His eyes slid closed and he breathed in the arrhythmic fashion he’d been trying to teach her. The atmosphere changed as Maul stopped hiding his Force signature. His presence swept out like an oily fire. Here was the dark presence that she’d caught flashes of whenever he used the Force. 

The intensity of it stole Rey’s breath, but mere seconds later Maul re-established his shields and opened his eyes. ‘That is what you feel like most of the time,’ he said. ‘You are just as strong, maybe more so. It is hard to tell when you let your power leak everywhere.’

‘I don’t feel dark like that,’ Rey blurted. 

Maul stared at her for a long time. ‘No. But it is not good to cut yourself off from half of the Force, apprentice.’

‘I’m not your apprentice,’ Rey said, ignoring the sceptical look Maul levelled at her. ‘Besides, the dark side eats you, if you give into it.’ Every source of Jedi information had said as much. So had one of the Sith texts she’d read.

To her surprise Maul nodded. ‘It wants to, yes. That is why control is important. The Jedi cut themselves off from it and tell themselves _that_ is control. They never understand that walking the edge of the blade, channelling the dark without letting it win, is true control.’ 

Maul stared into the middle distance. When he spoke again, his voice held an odd note. ‘I have felt a Jedi touch the dark side when I killed his master.’ Maul waved a hand in a vague, dismissive gesture. ‘He recoiled as soon as he realised, but that was not control, only absolute denial.’ 

‘I think you’re wrong,’ Rey said.

Maul shrugged. ‘Yet here I sit, unconsumed. A Sith who still lives. Your Jedi master also lives. Who can say who is right anymore? With the orders long dead, only the individuals matter now. Only surviving matters.’

‘I know how to survive.’

‘I don’t doubt you could live on most planets. Surviving the strain of the Force and the threat of its users is another matter. I see in you something that struggles to live. I want to help.’

‘Why?’ Rey asked. 

Maul was silent for a moment. ‘When you have lived as long as I, you learn to trust instincts.’

Rey gave him a long look, but Maul waved it away. ‘It is not time for philosophy now. You need to learn to hide your Force signature. Close your eyes, breath, and concentrate.’

Rey huffed, but she did close her eyes. She wondered at the fact that she no longer worried about dropping her guard like that around Maul.

///

Gradually Rey’s abilities improved under Maul’s tutelage. She could keep her shields up most of the time to hide her signature. It was still impossible to sneak up on him, but he’d made a remark about frail humans lacking the predator instincts of real carnivores, and she suspected it didn’t have much to do with the Force. 

More importantly, as far as Rey was concerned, her saberstaff katas improved to the point where she and Maul could spar with the sticks. The first time she managed to land a strike, he’d grinned at her. She’d grinned back and set about trying to repay him for all the training. They spent that entire morning trading blows before they broke off for lunch.

‘I didn’t graze myself once,’ Rey said between mouthfuls.

Maul nodded. ‘I think you are ready.’

Rey raised an eyebrow, but that was all he’d say on the matter. The sun was an hour or two below its zenith when Maul rose and beckoned for her to follow. He hadn’t been so uncommunicative since their first meeting and Rey felt uneasy. 

They ended up in the usual training spot and Maul turned to face her. He drew his saberstaff, but he didn’t engage the blades. Instead, he held it out to her. Rey drew in a quick breath.

‘Take it, apprentice,’ Maul said. ‘I want to see your katas with a live weapon.’

Rey reached out, but pulled back at the last second. ‘You’re sure?’

Maul snorted. ‘Yes.’

Rey gripped the twin hilts and felt the weight of it. She engaged the blades. The balance wasn’t that much different than a staff, but it was incredibly light compared to anything other than her own lightsaber.

‘Yes,’ Maul said, reading the hesitation in her face. ‘All lightsabers are different and the weight of them comes not from mass, but from resistance.’

Rey ran through a couple of very simple moves to test it. Having two blades gave the weapon a very different arc, but it still felt more familiar and more _right_ than her lightsaber had.

‘Begin,’ Maul said.

Rey let out a breath and moved through her first kata. She didn’t burn herself once.

///

The next morning Rey rose with the sun and was surprised that Maul wasn’t up and meditating yet. She went over to his sleeping pallet with, half-formed notions about teasing him for sleeping in. Those thoughts fled when she arrived at his side. Maul was showing his years in a way he hadn’t since she’d arrived. Even that time he’d thrown his hip hadn’t made him look this old, just angry.

Rey knelt by his side. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

Maul gave a weak chuckle. ‘Age. I have been tired for a long time now, I think it is time for me to end.’

‘But that’s ridiculous! You’ve survived so long.’

‘Yes, with willpower, the dark side will cater to most desires, including a very long life. But it has been enough. Even the dark side cannot completely halt aging.’

‘But you can’t just...! Why now?’ Rey demanded.

‘Maybe I wanted company. Maybe some brash, impetuous child reminded me that I couldn’t keep up anymore.’

Rey punched him in the arm, somewhat gently. ‘That’s a stupid reason.’

Maul laughed again. The sound was even weaker this time. Rey took his hand in her own. It was still hot and dry, like sun-warmed sand. ‘Perhaps, but it is a very Sith reason too,’ Maul said. He looked her in the eyes. His gaze wasn’t as sharp as it usually was. ‘My saberstaff is yours, my apprentice.’

Rey managed to smile past the lump that was rising in her throat. ‘I’m not your apprentice,’ she said, giving the familiar reply.

Maul returned her smile and squeezed her fingers weakly. ‘No. You are right. Your training with me is complete. Go, go and live, child. Survive. That is what matters.’ 

Maul’s eyes slid closed and his grip slackened. Rey felt his passing as a sense of darkness and power that flared against the Force and dissipated. Before her eyes, the corpse disappeared, leaving behind only empty robes. Rey blinked back tears. The saberstaff he’d bequeathed was lying beside his pallet. He must have left it there last night. 

Rey stared at it for a long time. As right as the saberstaff felt, it was still a Sith weapon. The four synth-crystals exuded dark side energies that only waxed stronger with Maul’s passing. Synth-crystals weren’t inherently dark, of course. Master Skywalker’s lightsaber used a green one, but Maul’s red crystals had been fashioned through his own hate and pain. 

Rey picked up the lightsaber and turned it around in her hands. The design was elegant and appealed to her sense of clever mechanics. Perhaps she could strip it, make her own crystals, and refit the blades. A Jedi should make her own weapon, after all. She clipped it onto her belt. 

She wasn’t sure what colour she’d make her crystals, yet. The traditional blue and green didn’t feel quite right any more, but she was no Sith and she wouldn’t make red ones, even through light side meditation. She absently tapped her fingers against the hilt at her side. Then again, that whisper of intuition, that both Master Skywalker and Maul had said was the Force, told her that whatever crystals she ended up making for this weapon, they would probably have a hint of red. For remembrance.


End file.
